The keynote address, delivered February 21, 2013 at tcworld India conference, Bangalore, India. The presentation provides a summary of the 2012 Technical Communication Industry Benchmarking Survey produced by The Content Wrangler. The survey aimed to capture the current methods, standards and tools used -- as well as future plans of -- the technical documentation and training departments of large, global, content-heavy organizations.
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The State of the Technical Communication Industry: tcworld India 2013 Keynote Address
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2.
3. The Content Wrangler 2012 Technical
Communication Industry Benchmarking Survey
About the survey
not scientific, but meaningful
loaded with real-world anecdotes
0ver 1100 respondents
500+ large, content-heavy firms
primarily North American/EU firms
4. The Content Wrangler 2012 Technical
Communication Industry Benchmarking Survey
Findings overview
agile documentation development
advanced documentation practices
complexity drives innovation
lack of strategy causes problems
5. documentation development methods
Agile approaches
45% attempt to leverage agile
• majority of technical communication
departments have not adopted agile methods
• those that do so struggle with challenges
• challenges: organizational silos, lack of
governance, differing approaches
waterfall is the most commonly used documentation development approach
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6. complexity drives adoption of
Advanced practices
Difficulty is the driver
• highly configurable hardware and
software products drive adoption
• multi-channel, multi-device publishing
drives adoption
• dynamic publishing, localization, translation,
and personalization are also strong drivers
the more challenging it is to develop documentation, the more likely advanced practices are adopted
7. advanced practices most often adopted to document
Configurable products
Efficiency is key
• configurable products are difficult to document
• organizations that use XML are better prepared
to respond to threats and new opportunities
• challenges increase when content is multi-lingual
• challenges increase with mobile device adoption
and as companies attempt to deliver apps, eBooks
customer expectations are driving this innovation; mobile computing also plays significant role
10. you can’t reach your goals without a
Content Strategy
A definition
from Rahel Ann Bailie
Content strategy deals with the planning aspects of managing
content throughout its lifecycle, and includes aligning content to
business goals, analysis, and modeling. It influences the
development, production, presentation, evaluation, measurement,
and sunsetting of content, including governance.
what content strategy is not is the implementation side
11.
12. The Content Wrangler 2012 Technical
Communication Industry Benchmarking Survey
A look at the findings
structured content, XML and DITA
content reuse strategy
customer-created content
leveraging communities
top software products used
13. XML is driving operational efficiency
Structured content
44% create structured XML
• 81% leverage DITA
• 30% use custom DTDs/schemas
• 16% use DocBook
12% of the companies that produce structured content use all three
14. Significant savings in time and money
Content reuse
between documentation
and training content
• 5% have done so in order to innovate or to
enable them to respond to threats or opportunities
• reuse most common between related document
or content sets (eg user guides, help, training)
the unexpected benefit is unanticipated reuse
16. One of the most convenient, but problematic methods
Copy and paste reuse
Most error prone, inefficient, costly method
• Content is actually cloned; each copied instance
exists on its own (disconnected from source)
• Unable to be easily located, retrieved, updated
Copy and paste is quite natural, but not a best practice
17. The most common form of content reuse
Manual content reuse
Authors locate content, retrieve it, reuse it
• Manual reuse is best accomplished with a CMS
• Helps organizations rapidly reconfigure reusable content
into new information products
• Provides authors with most flexibility, but is problematic
because it puts burden of reuse on authors
If authors lack motivation, are unaware content exists, or have trouble finding it, reuse does not occur
18.
19.
20. want a free chapter about
Content Reuse?
email me!
scott@TheContentWrangler.com
We can help. We do it every day for clients around the globe.
The Content Wrangler can help you deliver the right information,
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right format and language. If we can’t, we’ll find someone who can.
Your content is your most valuable business asset. Let us show you
how to manage it efficiently and effectively.
21. Who is responsible for monitoring support communities
Online communities
53% provide online support community
• 32% rely on customer service to monitor activity
• 20% distribute monitoring responsibility across roles
• 10% employ dedicated community manager
Online support communities and documentation influence customer purchasing decisions
22. Some organizations are leveraging the power of the crowd to create, update, improve documentation
Customer-created content
20% allow customers to edit documentation
• 8% allow ‘trusted customers’ to edit and publish content
without formal review
• Level of scrutiny is directly linked to the type of content
being produced and the liability or risk associated
with allowing customers to edit and publish content
• 17% allow customers to create new content
More than one-third of companies that allow customers to create content encourage them to do so
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24. Organizations use reactions from customers to improve documentation
Customer feedback and ratings
Benefits of feedback and ratings
• 47% improved customer support scores
• 17% improved documentation quality
• 16% support call deflection
• 13% reduced support call volume
• 12% reduced average call handling time
Additional benefits: Spotting problems with product design; reduction in negative feedback / complaints
25. Tools used vary by the type of work being performed and the industry sector served
Software used to create documentation
THE TOP TEN MOST USED
SOFTWARE PRODUCTS
1. Adobe FrameMaker 41%
2. TechSmith Snagit 35%
3. Microsoft Word 35%
4. Adobe Acrobat Pro 28%
5. Adobe Captivate 20%
6. Adobe RoboHelp 19%
7. TechSmith Camtasia 12%
8. XMetaL Author 11%
9. Microsoft PowerPoint 11%
10. Adobe Photoshop 11%
26. The Content Wrangler 2012 Technical
Communication Industry Benchmarking Survey
Innovations planned for future
moving to structured content
adopting XML/DITA
component content management
video documentation
26
27. what they’re planning for 2013-2014
Future Innovations
XML and DITA
21% of companies surveyed plan to move to structured XML
by 2014; the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is
the XML schema of choice.
doing so is believed to better prepare companies for the future
28. what they’re planning for 2013-2014
Future Innovations
Component content
14% of companies surveyed plan to adopt a component
content management system designed specifically to manage
modular, structured XML content.
component content management systems are built to support multi-channel publishing
29. what they’re planning for 2013-2014
Future Innovations
Video documentation
11% of companies surveyed plan to adopt video
documentation and training content, usually to augment
existing documentation, support, and training purposes.
customer expectations are driving this innovation; mobile computing also plays significant role
30. STRUCTURED
CONTENT 2012 TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION INDUSTRY
BENCHMARKING SURVEY
44%
of companies
create structured
XML content SUMMARY RESULTS
Agile documentation adoption
DITA slow, not always successful
81%
of companies that The majority of technical documentation and training
create structured departments have not adopted an agile approach to creating
want a copy of the
content use DITA and publishing content. Agile methods are based on iterative
and incremental cycles that promote adaptive planning,
?
Summary Results
evolutionary development, and flexible responses to change.
OTHER FLAVORS While 45% of companies surveyed claim to apply agile
30% use custom XML DTDs
development principles to TechComm projects, few do it
successfully. Typical challenges include organizational silos,
16% use DocBook lack of governance, differing approaches. The waterfall
development method is the dominant approach in use today.
Biggest challenge is the lack of content strategy
Our benchmarking survey • Inability to effectively reuse The next biggest challenges:
uncovered a wide variety of content
challenges facing companies that • Lack of governance
• Creation of inconsistent,
produce technical documentation inaccurate, or mediocre quality • Lack of time, money and
tcworld india
and training content. The biggest content resources
challenge identified was the lack of
a formal content strategy. • Producing content of unknown
customer value
Commonly cited symptoms of
• Process problems and production
will make it available to you
organizations lacking a content bottlenecks
strategy include:
•
along with this slide deck WHAT INNOVATIONS ARE YOU PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE?
after the event
21% 14% 11%
Moving to topic-based content models
like the Darwin Information Typing
The adoption of a component content
management system is the second
Creating video documentation and
training content is the third most
Architecture is the most common most common innovation planned for common innovation planned for the
innovation planned for the future— the future—cited by 14% of companies. future—cited by 11% of companies.
cited by 21% of companies.
DITA/XML CCMS VIDEO